Aeliana never hated her mother for sparing her life and making her suffer hell for three years. In fact, she loved her dearly.
Nevertheless, the accumulated resentment in her heart kept her from expressing her true feelings.
Such feelings made her soft, weak, and vulnerable – something she didn’t need if she wanted to stay strong and endure the hellish torment brought by her Abomination form.
She thought she had discarded those feelings, but they came back like rushing water after the floodgates opened.
Aeliana wasn’t sure if her present state was also part of her Lord’s arrangement, but she was grateful to him.
、 Without her Lord’s instruction, she wouldn’t have visited her mother and awakened her sealed emotions.
At the same time, she realized she missed her mother very much.
…
After Solana and the others regained control of their powers, their bodies greedily absorbed the mana around them like dry plants receiving their first drop of water in years.
Before long, Solana recovered both her magic and physical strength.
Nevertheless, she didn’t care for any of that. The only thing on her mind was her daughter.
She used every ounce of her strength to unearth the collapsed region in hopes of reaching her daughter, who may have been buried underneath.
“No, no, no! Allie!” Solana tearfully cried.
She quickly separated the ground with Earth Magic, but Earth Magic was never her specialty. Her mana quickly ran out before she resorted to using her hands again.
Dirty accumulated under her nails, and sharp fragments in the ground chipped them, cutting her fingers and causing them to bleed.
Despite the self-mutilation of her hands, Solana didn’t stop digging.
Aeliana couldn’t bear to keep watching.
She eventually stepped out of the tree and approached the dig site, revealing herself to her mother and the other three people.
“Mother…” Aeliana uttered, feeling choked on her emotions.
Her voice wasn’t very clear and audible in the heavy rain, but it made its way right into her mother’s ears.
Solana’s body froze as she recognized her daughter’s familiar voice at that instant.
In the next instance, Solana quickly climbed out of the deep pit she had dug, and there, she found her daughter standing by the edge of the pit, staring back at her.
She looked the same as she did three years ago, prior to the Abomination incident.
“Allie…?”
Solana hurriedly scurried over to Aeliana’s side and carefully studied her appearance, fearing she was only her daughter’s lookalike.
However, there was no mistaking it; it was truly her daughter, back to her original appearance.
“You’re alright… Thank the heavens. I don’t know what I would do if you were gone from this world. I’m sorry for being a selfish mother. You must have suffered a lot.”
Solana rejoiced from the bottom of her heart, but her tears would stop running down her cheeks.
Aeliana was affected by her mother’s emotions, and her tears also overflowed.
Over the past three years, her mother had aged considerably, as seen by her present appearance. Her mother was no longer young and beautiful like most witches.
Instead, she looked like a normal middle-aged woman due to the lack of mana nourishment.
“I’m sorry for everything, Mother,” Aeliana apologized, recognizing her fault for everything that had happened to them.
They could have avoided the tragedy if she hadn’t been too impatient to prove herself.
Nevertheless, Solana shook her head.
“Your mistakes… the fault lies with me. I am not a good mother. I shouldn’t have made you shoulder so much responsibility while you are still young, and I should have been more prudent about other people’s ill intentions,” Solana stated.
Although Aeliana wanted to argue otherwise, the Senior Witch and two Aura Grandmasters interrupted as they forced themselves in between her and her mother.
“Be careful, Lady Solana. Don’t be fooled by this person’s appearance,” the Senior Witch, Maria, warned before she mentioned, “There’s no way Lord Aeliana would look like this. She had turned into an Abomination, remember?”
“That’s right, Lady Solana. This person must have altered her appearance with magic to look like Lord Aeliana in order to trick you for some ulterior motives,” one of the two Aura Grandmasters added.
In that instance, Aeliana’s eyes flashed with heavy malevolence and killing intent, shocking the Senior Witch and two Aura Grandmasters.
At the same time, her malicious aura further strengthened their suspicion.
“S-Such dense killing intent and malevolence! She must be a shape-shifting demon!” Maria blindly accused Aeliana before she added, “There’s no Lord Aeliana would possess such malevolence!”
“You don’t understand what I’ve been through,” Aeliana spat in a low tone.
Their interruption already angered her, and the Senior Witch’s false accusation only further fueled her fury.
She was completely infuriated and considered whether to slaughter Senior Witch for her ignorance and insolence.
But before either side could take further action, Solana thundered, “How dare you, Maria! Do you think I’m incapable of recognizing my child?! The person before you is, without a doubt, my daughter!”
“But… I’ve never heard of anyone recovering after turning into an Abomination…” Maria uttered while standing her ground.
“Just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it’s impossible!” Solana firmly stated as she strongly suspected Vaan had played a major role in her daughter’s recovery.
“But…”
Maria and the other two Aura Grandmasters stubbornly stood their ground to protect Solana from Aeliana until they could confirm her identity.
However, Aeliana’s patience grew thin.
With a wave of her hand, the tree roots underneath them rose and slapped each of them out of the way.
It was a casual move, but its force was enough to shatter their bones and leave them half dead.
“I understand your suspicions, but I won’t tolerate such insolence again. Understand that I was lenient this time because you have all suffered due to my past actions. If you point your blades at me again, I will kill you where you stand,” Aeliana said imperiously.
Despite the three people having spoiled her mood, she suppressed her fury and only delivered them a light punishment.
Meanwhile, Maria and the two Aura Grandmasters coughed up blood after they were struck flying by the powerful tree roots.
Still, they couldn’t hide the shock they felt at how helpless they were to resist Aeliana’s attack.
“You’ve tamed the power from your Abomination state, Allie?” Solana uttered, pleasantly surprised by her daughter’s masterful control over the wood elements.